The Properties of Scripture

Although these 'properties' of Scripture are varied and understood slightly differently all over the place, it's good to know them. So here they are:

1. Authority:
Jesus Christ is the true Lord and authority of the Church, and yet,

Scripture is authoritative because and in that it witnesses to God as the One who has called his Community in his own actions, in the freedom of his historical activity.

Weber, 271.

The authority of Scripture is not some sort of inherent characteristic, but is as Jesus is Lord of the Church through the Spirit who "was not just the Lord of Scripture in the past, but always is." (Weber, 272) That is, Scripture has authority not because the Spirit injected it with authority in the past, but because the Spirit still speaks through it today. As such a living authority, its authority is not 'at hand' or easily grasped, but must be sought and decided for again and again.

2. Sufficiency:
This property is summed up in that,

Scripture suffices unto salvation and for the right knowledge of God in his activity.

Weber, 274.

This is so because Christ through the Spirit, rather than the Church and/or tradition, speaks through it unto the living and knowledge of salvation.

3. Perspicuity:
This property basically states that Scripture is understandable to everyone because God reveals himself to us through it in a way that we can understand it with the brains, intellect, reasoning, etc. that we are created with. We do not need to rely on a guiding principle or method from the Church in order to understand Scripture. That being said, we still need revelation via the Word of God and the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit for it to be God who addresses us and calls us to faith in Scripture.

4. Efficacy:
This property looks at Scripture's 'effect' on its readers. There is a tension in this property that is difficult to navigate. On one hand, we do not believe that Scripture (as a book sitting on a table, for instance) inherently contains efficacious power that we can wield whenever we'd like, but on the other hand, we do believe that Scripture is effective in a special way as it bears witness to what God has done in Christ and is doing in the Spirit. I think the efficacy of Scripture is put nicely in Weber's discussion of Calvin,

...because the Word is worked by the Spirit and empowered by him, it cannot fall to the earth without effect.

Weber, 286.

Simple and true. The second paragraph on p. 286 sums up the property nicely.